Is Philip’s Glass Half Empty or Half Full?

While looking for something to plug into my ears while I work, I came across some Philip Glass music. From my understanding, Glass is what is called a minimalist musician. Some of his stuff I honestly just don’t get, but then there is the album Koyaanisqatsi, which means “life out of balance” in Hopi.

A once good friend from up Albany way whom I’ve not been in contact with for, God, 10+ years and on whom I partially blame for helping me to discover my apparently not-so-shabby ability to write erotica stories, introduced Glass to me. It’s different, it’s very, very different.

It turns out that Koyaanisquatsi is actually a movie soundtrack. I had no idea that was the case until this morning, so poked around beyond that to see what other weirdness Glass was up to. I was not disappointed. Another piece called Einstein on the Beach is almost fifteen minutes of seemingly random counting, spoken word, and single long held notes played on an electric keyboard. The Hours isn’t so bad and the music for The Kiss is alright even if the video is more than a little bizarre. Is that cotton candy she’s wearing?

As much as I like “Koyaanisquatsi” in small doses and listening to music beyond the top twenty soft rock, country, and/or pop tunes that are played on the radio – today I think I made the wiser choice and settled on my favorite stand-by of taking in some even earlier memories from back when I was just a kid; good old episodes of CBS Radio Mystery Theater instead.

I’m feeling pretty balanced lately and I’m afraid that listening to too much Philip Glass might throw that all out of whack. Besides, I really don’t need to be any wackier.